What Do Vice Co-Founder Gavin McInnes & ISIS Have In Common? An Appreciation For Donald Trump

MINNEAPOLIS — While the alternative media outlet Vice is associated with reporting on a decidedly liberal flavor of the American and international counterculture, one of its original co-founders is today a strong supporter of Donald Trump and his extremely conservative agenda.

Along with Shane Smith and Suroosh Alvi, Gavin McInnes founded a small independent magazine, the “Voice of Montreal,” in 1994, which would be rechristened “Vice” in 1996. By 2008, Vice had grown into a media empire that includes a popular website, a separate “Vice News” brand for journalism, a music label, and an HBO program. However, citing “creative differences,” McInnes announced his departure from the media brand in January 2008.

Since parting ways with Vice, McInnes, who now hosts an online program, “The Gavin McInnes Show,” and serves as a frequent Fox News contributor, has come under fire for transphobic and anti-Semitic rhetoric. And now he’s lending his support to Trump, the controversial GOP frontrunner for the 2016 presidential nomination.

“Trump has built his campaign juggernaut on the premise that he is willing to flout all standards of political correctness, drawing the support of Americans fearful of immigrants and favoring a muscular response to Islamic terrorism.”

In a Dec. 8 appearance on NewsMax TV, McInnes declared that although he previously supported Ted Cruz for president, he had “crossed over to the dark side” to support Trump after the San Bernardino shooting.

Lamenting that people in Paris were in a civil state of mourning following the November attacks in the city and other GOP candidates’ comparatively liberal policies on immigration and refugees, he declared, “We need to swing the pendulum away from tolerance and towards irrational behavior.”

“They’re all wimps,” McInnes declared of the other Republican presidential hopefuls, including Cruz. “When Trump says something with hubris and courage and bravery that sounds like the real America, they cower in fear.”

Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric is also garnering support from another, perhaps more unexpected source. Daesh (an Arabic acronym for the group commonly known as ISIS) closely follows him, according to Rita Katz, an intelligence analyst who follows the terrorist group on social media. On Dec. 8, she told NBC News, “They love him from the sense that he is supporting their rhetoric,” adding:

“They follow everything Donald Trump says … When he says, ‘No Muslims should be allowed in America,’ they tell people, ‘We told you America hates Muslims and here is proof.'”

David Phillips, director of the Program on Peace-Building and Rights at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, concurred, telling NBC, “Trump’s incendiary anti-Muslim comments will surely be used by ISIS social media to demonize the United States and attract recruits to fight in Iraq and Syria.”

Watch “Gavin McInnes discusses his provocative take on the California terror attack” from NewsMaxTV:

Within days of starting the war, Saudi Arabia imposed a total land, air and sea blockade, along with targeting vital agriculture and food supply infrastructure that sustains life for the 29 million Yemenis — all of which constitute war crimes under international law.

The U.S.-backed Saudi coalition in Yemen carried out another disturbing war crime against civilians. A series of airstrikes killed at least 55 civilians and injured over 170 more at a busy fishermen market and hospital. According to Yemen’s Health Ministry, the victims included nine children.